The present invention broadly relates to a method of, and apparatus for, forming quilts and pertains, more specifically, to a new and improved method of processing textile material webs, especially for the manufacture of quilts, and to a new and improved apparatus for processing textile material webs, particularly for the section-by-section or unit manufacture of multilayer quilts and the like.
Generally speaking, in the practice of the method aspects of the present invention for the processing of textile material webs in a quilting or stitching machine, especially for the manufacture of quilts and the like, cover-material webs and filler-material webs are withdrawn from a material stock or supply, laterally sewn together along lateral lengthwise edges or marginal portions, clamped and stretched section-by-section in a tenter device or frame of the quilting or stitching machine, quilted or stitched in the tenter device or frame and subsequently guided out of the quilting or stitching machine as a quilted workpiece.
As to the apparatus aspects of the present development, the new and improved apparatus concerns a quilting or stitching machine comprising a sewing or stitching device, a feed station provided with a material stock or supply from which cover-material webs and filler-material webs can be withdrawn, and a tenter frame or frame unit guidable back-and-forth or reciprocated relative to the sewing or stitching device, the cover-material webs and the filler-material webs having a predetermined path of conveyance and being stretched and quilted in the tenter frame or frame unit. There are also provided means for leading or withdrawing the quilted material webs out of the quilting machine.
Quilts and the like consist of several layers of flat textile webs, generally of one or several layers formed of cotton or a fiber filling or padding as well as of a top layer of cover material and a bottom layer of cover material. These layers are sewn or stitched together by seams which usually extend in an ornamental pattern or design.
The superposed fabric materials and inserts must be held together during the quilting or stitching operation, so that no mutual shifting or displacement relative to one another can take place. For this purpose, the individual layers are fed to the quilting or stitching machine, stretched in a frame or frame unit or held between pairs of rolls or rollers and thus accurately positioned, before they can be sewn or stitched together in the frame or frame unit or between the pairs of rolls or rollers.
In a quilting machine as known from European Patent Application No. 0,316,267, published May 17, 1989 and the cognate U.S. Pat. No. 4,883,009, granted Nov. 28, 1989, the lengthwise edges or marginal portions of cover-material webs and filler-material webs are sewn together during web withdrawal from stock or supply rolls, so that the loosely superposed material webs not yet stretched in a tenter frame cannot be mutually displaced relative to each other by the longitudinal movements of the tenter frame. This known quilting or stitching machine perfectly precludes slipping or sliding of the still nonquilted material webs or layers.
The disadvantage of this known quilting or stitching machine and, in fact, of all other quilting or stitching machines is the loss or waste of expensive cover and filler material which is held in the tenter frame within the covering range of the clamping jaws or toothed segments along the lengthwise edges or marginal portions and which cannot be quilted and, therefore, has to be cut off as waste.